The Thirty-Nine Steps

"I returned to the City about three o'clock on that Monday afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it." So opens John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps and with it he creates a whole new genre: the adventure novel. Richard Hannay, the protagonist, finds himself reluctantly drawn into a chain of events that drags him away from the civilisation of London and into the Scottish wilderness, where he is chased both by villains and by policemen.
This book has been adapted countless times, the most famous one certainly being Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 version. Full of excitement and good humour, The Thirty-Nine Steps is a modern classic you'll never want to put down.